Settling In

I'll light the fire, you place the flowers in the vase that you bought today.

Staring at the fire for hours and hours while I listen to you

Play your love songs all night long for me, only for me.

... Our house is a very very fine house ...

- Graham Nash/Crosby, Stills & Nash

We made it to Palmy! The entire journey was pretty uneventful. We made all our connections without any delays, our bags made it all on the same flights, and the welcoming committee was at the airport waiting for us on our arrival. We had a good number of bags, but we didn't even approach the record of 18 bags (for a family of 5).

We had already scoped out our house on Google Earth and had pics sent to us before the move, so we had a pretty good idea of what it was like. 3 BR, 1.5 Ba with a separate 2-car garage. The house was built in 1960. The kitchen and carpets were updated somewhere along the way. Like any house outside of the USA, rooms are small, storage/closet space is limited, and the appliances are proportionally small. The biggest concern, though not a surprise, is the lack of insulation, heat, or air conditioning. Anyone who comes to visit should be prepared for being sweaty in the summer and wearing an extra sweater in the winter. Windows are single-pane glass, so plastic over-window treatments for winter if you come to visit will guarantee you an extra bottle of wine.  

 

New Zealand "AC" is literally a hole in the windows!

The first several days in our new home have been cold, grey, windy, and drizzly. We set up our bank accounts and cell phone service and we also set up our home internet; however, that won't be functional for about a week. We did manage to buy bicycles but didn't get much chance to ride them because of the weather. Little H was getting a little stir crazy, so we got the bikes out and went to the river. The ride was made a little miserable by the blowing wind and scattered showers. As usual, Little H made friends with every dog we encountered along the way.

We also visited Little H's school. They are on break between the 3rd and 4th terms, so the Deputy Principal met us at the school and gave us a tour. It's an awesome environment with big, open rooms and several areas for instruction. Students can sit at desks, bean-bag chairs, couches, or on the floor to do their work ... whichever suits their personal style. The classes are set up with about a 20:1 student to teacher ratio. Multiple classes are combined so there can be 60+ students in a room with 3 roving teachers. Teachers are encouraged to teach to their strengths and students are expected to work more on their self-identified weaknesses. I am really excited to see how Little H responds to this. I think she is pretty happy about it, though she is not so happy about the school uniform.      

We ate savory pies (our most missed food from our prior New Zealand experience), found a local curry takeaway (Indian take-out), and I can't wait to try the local fish and chips. Mostly, we have been cooking meals familiar to us from home. We did buy a lamb roast and had planned on cooking that; however we decided to leave town for the weekend, so the roast will have to wait until we get back home.

Today, we left Palmy and drove South to Cape Palliser; the southern-most point on the North Island. The trip took us through wine country (who am I kidding ... the entire country is "wine country"). Just a few minutes out of Palmy, we were in rolling hills and farmland dotted with cattle and sheep. Even grey and overcast, the mountains drew us onward. At Cape Palliser, we explored black sand beaches, got up close and personal with the largest seal colony on the North Island, and climbed 250 steps to the Cape Palliser Light-house. 

As we planned our trek up to the base of the lighthouse, the Lonely Planet guide warned that "It's a beaut view from here, and a great place to linger if the wind isn't blowing your eyeballs into the back of your head." The reality didn't belie the description. The climb up 250 steps wasn't nearly as bad as expected, the views were spectacular, and the wind was blowing to the point of being treacherous. Standing and taking pics without holding on is not for the faint of heart.

  

  

One of the most memorable moments of the day was exploring the seal colony. You are warned not to get between the seals and the water, else the seals are "likely to have a go at you" but we were almost among them before we even knew they were around us. The horrendous smell should have been our first clue. The seals themselves appeared as just big lumps of grey rock. Once we spotted one, though, it was easy to pick them out.

  

 

The light on the mountains and clouds as we drove back through wine country was indescribable. Trying to capture it on camera could not do it justice. The bright greens of sun-dappled fields contrasted against the grey skies and mountains looked like a movie-set painting. Driving up one side of the mountain ridge and down the other crossing over to Wellington was a white-knuckler. Speed limit on the two lane "highways" was typically 100 km/hr. For reference to my American friends, speed limit on 8 lane divided freeways in Canada and the US are typically about 100 km/hr. Little Highstead and Kari had much to say about my driving and I totally felt like a rally-car driver (even though I was driving like a granny at a measly 95 km/hr).

 

We finished the day in Wellington, one of our favorite cities. While we don't ever plan to live in a city as big as this, we do appreciate all it has to offer. Wellington has the feel of Austin ... lot's of little restaurants and cafes, a young and vibrant feel, and enough piercings and tattoos to keep it weird. We ate pizza at a really cool, wood-fired pizza joint called "Heaven" (it was) and for the first time in a long time, I felt old and conservative.

Since this is the last weekend of school break, and we planned the trip at the last minute, there weren't many hotel rooms left in the city. We ended up staying at the Intercontinental Wellington, about as swanky a place as I have ever stayed in. Fortunately, we brought it down a notch and trashed yet another hotel room ... though not before Little H went full diva.

This is our last 2 days in the lap of luxury. Tomorrow, we will spend the entire day in Wellington, then return to Palmy after one more night of being pampered. We return home and I start work the same day Little H starts school. I hope all of our friends on the East Coast are staying warm and dry as Matthew threatens.

Alright, alright, alright ...